🎥 Riejanne Markus saw Pogačar storm past on the Cipressa during recon: “We ran into him four times”

Markus was out riding the final part of La Primavera with Lidl-Trek when the women’s group was suddenly overtaken by a flying UAE train. “Behind the scooter — guess who? Pogi, and absolutely hammering it,” she told Thijs Zonneveld on the In de Waaier podcast. The place where she saw the Slovenian was telling. “A minute before we started the Cipressa.”

And for Pogačar, it was clearly not just a casual pass over the finale. The Dutch rider said she saw him several times during the recon. “I think twice already today. We heard a scooter — or really a motorbike — coming up behind us, honking hard for us to move aside, pretty intense. And that was Pogačar again. We saw him four times, and I think he did several laps. And I think with several teammates as well.”

“The last time we saw him, he was with Florian Vermeersch, who said hello to me. But the first time it wasn’t Florian,” Markus explained. Does that say something about UAE Team Emirates-XRG’s tactics? It certainly looks that way. The impression is that Pogačar wants to be completely sure his teammates know exactly what they need to do on the Cipressa. “Maybe he rode a Cipressa-Poggio lap with all six teammates. That would be pretty funny.”

It wasn’t just a casual ride through the final stretch of La Primavera for Pogacar, that much was clear to the Lidl-Trek rider. He blasted past Markus and her teammates. “I didn’t stay near him; he was pretty fast off the mark. One of my teammates checked to see if he’d posted it on Strava, but there’s no way he’s going to post it on Strava.”

Also fun: Pogacar’s status in the women’s peloton is at least as big as it is among the men. “My teammate, Margot Vanpachtenbeke, was totally starstruck, but I thought it was funny. After the Poggio, he was sitting on a terrace in Sanremo drinking coffee, and then he waved. She waved back: her whole day was made,” laughs Markus.

Pogacar was also captured on camera by a fan. There he is, with Vermeersch behind Niccòlo Bonifazio’s scooter. It’s certainly going fast. For Zonneveld, the reconnaissance lap has completely determined UAE’s tactics. “For anyone who thinks Pogacar is going to use a different tactic than racing up the Cipressa…”